


All Strung Up With No Place To Go

by SeeEmRunning



Category: Criminal Minds, Supernatural
Genre: Amputation, Crucifixion, Gen, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-02
Updated: 2013-11-02
Packaged: 2017-12-31 05:52:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1028025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeeEmRunning/pseuds/SeeEmRunning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam's missing for two months before they start finding the bodies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I've been writing a lot of crucifixion-fic lately. Mostly as a sequel to the Glee fic, which I have yet to figure out the ending for. (But about a dozen sequels are written!)

He doesn't know anymore if he's hot or cold. All he knows is that he hurts, hurts in ways he couldn't previously fathom despite a decade of hunting monsters and getting thrown around by things that shouldn't exist. The pain is concentrated in wrists and feet, the strain clear in the intermittent spasms of muscles, almost wasted away after so long in this position.

He doesn't know how long he's been here. All he knows is that it's been a long time and nobody's looking.

He doesn't know how long it took for his senses to start failing. All he knows is that what sight he has left is blurred, his ears only work a third of the time, he can only taste and smell moldy copper, and the only sensation he is capable of knowing any more is pain.

He doesn't know why his captors want him to live. All he knows is he isn't allowed to die. His heart has already stopped once, he knows that. He remembers being resuscitated, CPR and AED, only to be strung back up.

His wrists are nailed to a crosspiece, his ankles to the vertical bar to support his weight enough that his hands won't break and tear.

Worse, he's not the only. Just the first.


	2. Body

"So they’ve all been crucified," Reid said.

"Who does that?" Rossi asked. "Romans?"

"Crucifixion was actually pre-Biblical," Reid answered. "It was designed for maximum humiliation and pain. Some people were so good at crucifixion the victim could stay alive for weeks or months after being strung up."

"Oh. Good," Prentiss said sarcastically. "Do we have any idea how long these people lasted?"

"Based on the blood loss, ME guesses a few days, maybe less. Most of them showed broken ribs and electrical burns consistent with attempts to revive them."

"Revive them?" Morgan repeated. "They tried to keep them alive longer?"

"Looks like," Hotch said. "We land in twenty. Reid, Morgan, to the dump site. Rossi, Prentiss, morgue. JJ, you and I will go to the station and find out if they have anything new."

The dump site was Felt Lake, less than a half mile from I-280 and halfway between Palo Alto and Portola Valley. It was still being dredged when they got there. "Think they wanted to revisit? Or was this just convenient?" Morgan asked.

"I guess we'll find out when we find them," Reid answered as they pulled another body.  
***  
The medical examiner didn't have much that was new. "Wounds consistent with CPR and AED, just like the others," she told them. "Two of them were successfully revived but died again, I'd say less than two days later."

"So they do have some success with resuscitation," Prentiss said, just to make sure.

"Yes, but it usually fails. They've lost too much blood and their bodies just can't take the strain any more."

"These are all reasonably fit young men," Rossi said. "How long do you think someone could survive?"

"Well, if they could avoid starvation and dehydration, were careful not to aggravate the wounds, _and_ avoided infection, they might be able to make it three or four weeks before the stress was too much. Maybe more, depending on how fit they were when they were first strung up."

"So they could have been up for a month," Rossi said. "Why?"

"Torture?" Prentiss suggested. "Crucifixion suggests sadism."

"And it has to be a group."

"Maybe killer Satanic cults do exist," Prentiss teased him. "Or maybe we got some Jesus freaks taking it way too far."

"Either way, let's see what Hotch and JJ know."  
***  
The Palo Alto police department was bustling when they got in. "Agent Jareau? We spoke on the phone," said a redhead, holding out her hand. "I'm Detective Logan."

"Nice to meet you, Detective," JJ said, shaking the other woman's hand. "This is SSA Hotchner."

"How do you do," he said politely.

"Well, thanks, and you?"

"I'm fine."

"Glad to hear it. We set the room up for you the way you requested," she told JJ. "If you'll follow me?"

"Have you heard anything new?" Hotch asked.

"Three of the victims were seen leaving the same bar," she offered.

"And we have seven bodies so far?" Hotch asked, taking a seat.

"Nine now," the woman said. "They got another two out of the lake since this morning."

"I'll send Reid and Morgan back over there tonight," Hotch said. "JJ, organize a press conference. We need to put pressure on this group."  
***  
"Look...FBI...see…."

"Should...dump…"

"...won't...danger…"

"Maybe...slow…."

"No...going...work."

What are they talking about? Does it really matter? He's going to die here anyway. Why is he still fighting the inevitable after he's already succumbed once?

But if the FBI is here, maybe there is hope.  
***  
"Hotch, we got something," Morgan said, holding the tip-line phone to his shoulder. "Another possible victim."

"Patch it through."

They grouped together and sat at the conference table. When they had Garcia on the line, Morgan put her on speaker, introduced himself, and told her to go ahead.

"My name's Jessica Moore," she said. "Two months ago, my boyfriend stopped returning my calls. I thought it was him being too cowardly to break up with me face to face because he's so conflict-avoidant, but I saw the press conference. Tall, well-built young men, right? Brunets? Sam was six-two and so muscly I was afraid to talk to him at first."

"Only at first?" Morgan asked.

"He's never raised a hand to me, if that's what you're implying," she said sharply.

"I'm not implying anything," he said hastily. "I'm just trying to get the facts. Do you know if he could fight at all? Or went to a bar called Murphy's?"

"Sam was raised paramilitary," she answered. "He can fight really well. We got attacked on our way back from a party once, and he put out six gangbangers in two minutes. He worked as a bouncer at Murphy's on weekends."

"Could he just be with his family?" Rossi asked.

"No. No way. Sam told me Stanford was his ticket out of the life. The only thing he's told me about his family is that his mother's dead and his brother's name is Dean. They kicked him out when he got accepted."

JJ winced, trying to imagine choosing between her family and her education. "What's his last name?"

"Winchester. Sam Winchester. He was studying psychology and concentrating in pre-law."

"You said he stopped returning calls two months ago?"

"Yeah. We were planning on getting an apartment together this fall." She sounded close to tears. "When he stopped answering his phone, I thought he was just freaking out over the commitment."

"Okay, Jessica, can you think of anyone who was hanging around you two in the days leading up to his disappearance?" Hotch asked.

"No. It was finals, so we were all pretty stressed."

"Is there any chance he just went out of town? Or stopped returning your calls for the commitment issue?"

"No." She sniffled. "He didn't have the money to leave town. It...he wouldn't just stop calling without letting me know. He isn't that kind of person. I just didn't want to think something could have happened to him, you know? He's like invincible. I caught him stitching himself up in the bathroom once after a rough shift. Didn't even have painkillers, just a sewing needle and some button thread and a bottle of jack."

They let the jack comment go, knowing the underage drinking wasn't worth the effort, especially for college kids so close to being twenty-one anyway. Prentiss had to wonder how a kid got so good at stitching himself up he could do it without painkillers. "When was the last time you saw him?"

"He came to dinner with me and my family the day I moved out of the dorms. He told me to let him know when I got home so he'd know I got there safe. I texted him when I got there, and he told me to sleep well, and that was the last time we talked."

"You both go to Stanford?" Rossi asked.

"Yeah. We just finished our sophomore year. Sam's on scholarship, so he was really stressed by finals. I can't imagine anyone getting close to him unless he was really exhausted."

"So he was aware of his surroundings?"

"I'd say he was overly cautious - didn't drink at parties, never let women walk home alone if he could help it, made sure I knew when he was expecting to be back - except three women I know of swear he kept someone from assaulting them, and the one time he wasn't back when he said he would be the hospital called me because he had a concussion and broken ribs."

"What happened that time?"

"He said he was mugged."

"Sounds like you don't believe that," Prentiss said.

"We were walking back from a party one night and a gang came out," she said. "He wasn't going to fight at first, was just going to give them his wallet and go on his way, but then they - they threatened to rape me, and he just hulked out. There must've been six of them there, and he just took them down, I couldn't even see what he did. Two minutes and they were out cold. It was insane. 'Specially since he's the biggest sweetheart - you don't even know, so many girls hang around him because they know he won't hurt them, and if they're at a party they'll call him and he'll come walk them home, and he'll do anything for his friends, I swear, it's ridiculous. And he has _dimples_." She said 'dimples' like they were the sole indicator of someone gentle.

"Do you have a picture you can send us?" JJ asked.

"Yeah, yeah, of course - what's your email address?"

Five minutes later they were looking at a picture of a tall blonde and taller brunet smiling under a flowering pear tree that had been taken on May 2, according to the timestamp. "She was right," Prentiss said. "He's got dimples I could drown in."

"Hot, sweetheart, badass," JJ said approvingly.

"And probably dead," Reid reminded them.

JJ rolled her eyes. "Thank you, Captain Buzzkill. He's still cute."

"And about ten years too young for us," Garcia said mournfully over the phone. "I found him, by the way. Samuel Francis Winchester, born on the second of May in 1983. November second that same year there's a house fire in Lawrence, Kansas, mother Mary dies, brother Dean carries him out. His dad John hangs around town a few months and then disappears. He resurfaces occasionally, mostly through criminal records, there's a few CPS reports. John was arrested for grave desecration, weapons charges, child neglect, insurance fraud, credit card fraud, and three different murders. He escaped every time. Sam and Dean grew up on the road, looks like they spent an average of three weeks in any given town, which means Sam is Reid levels of brilliant. Dean dropped out at sixteen and got a GED and had four counts of grave desecration on his record. Both boys have juvie records and I am unsealing them as we speak."

"Good work, Garcia," Hotch said.

"Wait, I'm not done," she protested. "John Winchester was, by all accounts, very disturbed. Talked about a demon who set the fire in Sam's nursery, claimed the grave desecration was to put down vengeful spirits, swore the murder charges were killing werewolves. Dean looks to have followed in his footsteps."

"And Sam?" Morgan asked.

"Sam's in college, sweetcheeks, nothing on his adult record."

"So when Jessica told us he was getting out, she meant it," Prentiss guessed. "What do you have on the other victims?"  
***  
He's burning hot and cold again. His heart is thundering so hard he can feel his pecs twitching. He's vacillating between all-consuming pain and numbness through his entire body.

When he feels his heart stutter to a halt, he can only pray they won't shock him back to life.  
***  
"We're looking for a very strict religious group," Hotch began. "We think the first victim was Sam Winchester, two months ago. He worked as a bouncer and has been known to come out on top when fighting a gang on his own. Given the overlap between kidnappings and deaths, they have multiple victims at any one time, so there are likely at least ten members."

"There won't be more than fifteen," Rossi added. "The more there are, the more likely one of them is to rat out the others."

"Given the dump and abduction sites, it's likely the unsubs keep their victims somewhere in this area." Reid gestured to the circle on the map. "The GPS on Sam Winchester's phone cut out around here as well. They'll be outcasts, loners. People you wouldn't be surprised to hear were capable of murder."  
***  
"Welcome back."   
***  
"They may think they're doing God's work by punishing sinners," Prentiss continued. "They will fight to the death."

"They're probably holed up in a warehouse or other large structure," Reid said. "Somewhere out in the open where they won't be interrupted."

"There's a barn right in the middle of that area," an officer called out.

The agents straightened. "That's not on any map," Hotch said.

"Off the grid. No power, water, nothing."

"Let's check it out," Hotch ordered.  
***  
New pain in his wrists and ankles. The only thing that keeps him from sobbing in pain, horror, and disappointment is his utter exhaustion.  
***  
They'd barely gotten out of the SUVs when the first gun went off, leaving them to scramble for cover behind the cars and call for more backup. Reid felt a bullet graze his arm as he dove for cover, not deep.

"You okay?" Morgan asked, eyes on the barn.

"Fine." Reid pulled his own gun and mirrored the other man's position, shooting when he saw an opportunity.  
***  
Gunshots? Has he been found?  
***  
The SWAT van pulled up and the team piled out, already firing. There was no chance for negotiating, not with bullets flying around them. All they could do was fire back and hope for the best.

Slowly, the returning fire got more sporadic until there was just one person still shooting. One of the SWAT members put him out with a head shot when he broke cover.

They waited five minutes to see if fire would resume, and when it didn't, they started moving slowly toward the building to clear it. There were thirteen by the doors. They checked for pulses quickly and efficiently. None of them were alive.

The hallway was clear, the rooms branching off empty but for two mattresses apiece. When they opened the last door and spilled into the main room, Reid almost threw up.  
***  
Someone is moving through the room. He can feel them, the difference in air currents palpable. The lightest tap on the nails is enough to make him nearly convulse in agony. The only thing that keeps him still is the knowledge that moving will make the pain worse.

"Hold...down...okay…."

The words don't make sense.  
***  
"Hold on, Sam. We're going to get you down. You're going to be okay, all right, man?" Morgan called. The filth on his face, the matted hair, and the blood pouring down his naked body obscured him, but it was clearly Sam Winchester up on the cross. He wanted nothing more than to yank the nails from the young man's body, but he knew that would do more harm than good. He wasn't even sure if he was alive.

"Clear," Hotch called. "Morgan, check for a pulse."

The moment he put fingers on Sam's neck, he started screaming.  
***  
Someone is touching him, moving him, provoking a scream. He can't handle this, can't handle touch, and if his tongue was working he would beg for them to just kill him already. He tries anyway. "Please...lemme die."  
***  
The blood in Morgan's veins turned to ice. "Hey, Sam, you're not gonna die, okay?" His bare chest showed recent electrical burns and wounds he knew came from CPR.

"Please," he slurred again, eyelids opening to reveal cloudy hazel irises. "Can'...can' do this...no' 'gain…."

"You're going to be fine, Sam," Morgan said. "Need you to stay with me, okay?"

"Please," he whimpered, head falling forward and eyes closing.

"Jessica would never forgive us if we let you die."

"Jess?" His head jerked up, provoking a whimper. "No...keep 'er 'way...don' wan' her hurt…."

"Neither do we, Sam, it's okay," Morgan soothed. "It's over. They can't hurt you anymore."

He whimpered again, and Morgan suddenly realized he might not be hearing most of what he was saying. "Just hang on," he said, and instantly wanted to smack himself for his choice of words.

"D'n?" Sam mumbled.

"Who's Din, Sam?"

"Dean," he moaned, drawing out the 'e'.

"Oh. No, Sam, I'm not Dean. I can call him for you," Morgan offered, then yelled, "Damn it, where's the ambulance?"

"On their way," Reid answered from right behind him.

"Sam, buddy, stay with me," he said again. "Come on, man, don't pass out on me now."

His words fell on deaf ears as Sam slumped forward, muscles going lax. Morgan got a shoulder up under him to try to keep his wrists from tearing any more than they already had been.

"Two minutes," Reid called. "They said to see if we can find a saw to cut the wood with."

"Here," Hotch said, emerging with an axe. "Rossi, help Morgan keep him from falling."

"How is he even still alive?" Prentiss asked.

"He's wasted away," Reid answered. "His body burned muscle for energy."

"Thank you, Doctor Reid, for answering the rhetorical question," Prentiss said sarcastically.

Sam screamed when the axe hit the wood below his feet, bringing the conversation to a standstill. His eyes bulged, his breath coming in deep pants.

"You're doing good, Sam," Rossi said.

Five strokes and five screams later, the crucifix fell forward. Morgan and Rossi caught the wood; between them and Hotch, they got Sam turned so he was on his back, taking some of the pressure off his overtaxed body just as they heard sirens in the distance.

"You hear that, Sam?" Morgan asked. "The ambulance is coming."

"Won' fit," he slurred. "Arms."

His comprehension was improving. Morgan filed that away under 'things that don't make sense' and paid attention to what he was saying. "Then let's get the piece cut."

Sam whimpered, but nodded. A few tears slid down his cheeks as they got him in position. Hotch was careful, but he couldn't avoid jarring Sam's abused body as he cut through the wood holding his arms out to his sides.

The medics came in just as Hotch finished cutting through the left side. "What've we got?" one asked.

"Crucifixion," Reid answered. "We cut him down so he could fit in the ambulance."

"Coherent?" She signed a light in his eye.

"In and out," Morgan answered. "I don't think he's tracking well."

"Dean?" Sam asked again.

"No, Sam, but we'll find him," Morgan promised. "We'll get him here."

"We're taking him," the medic said. "John, call ahead, tell 'em to have an OR prepped and waiting. Don't suppose you know his blood type?"

"O negative," Reid answered. When they looked at him, he shrugged. "He's donated blood. It was in his file."

"O negative it is," the medic said.  
***  
They rock-paper-scissorsed to see who made what call. Morgan, the ultimate winner, got Jessica Moore. Reid, the ultimate loser, got Dean Winchester.

"Hello?"

"Hello, Jessica Moore?"

"Yes?"

"This is Agent Morgan, with the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit. We spoke earlier."

"Yes, I remember. Did you find him?" There wasn't much hope in her voice, and if she'd been keeping up with the news, Morgan couldn't blame her.

"We did. He's alive."

"He's - oh my God, is he okay?"

"I'm not going to lie, he's in bad shape. He's in surgery now. But he's alive."

"Where is he? Can I see him?"

"He's at the Stanford Trauma Center," Morgan told her. "The doctors say after he gets out of surgery, he probably won't be up for much activity. But I think seeing you would do him some good."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. I said your name and he begged me to keep you away so you wouldn't be hurt."

"Oh my God," she said again, and he could hear her tears. "That's him all over."

"He also asked for Dean. Do you know how to get in contact with him?"

"No, I don't. They - they didn't talk."

"I know. With any luck we'll find his phone, but we were hoping to take as little time as possible."

"Yeah. Yeah, I get it. Sorry. I have no idea."

"It's all right."

"God, I - I'm leaving now, okay? I'll be there in a few hours."

"All right. Drive safe." The line clicked dead and Morgan blew out a breath before calling Reid. "Any luck?"

"There's twenty-three cells here, we're having to charge them all," Reid answered testily. "Apparently the people in charge didn't care if they could receive calls."

"Sounds like fun." He could almost hear Reid's scowl. "Let me know when you get in contact with him."

"Sure." The call ended. Morgan wondered what was with people and not saying 'goodbye' today.

"Any news?" he asked Rossi.

"None so far," he answered.   
***  
Reid called Morgan. "The number for Dean's been disconnected," he said without preamble. "How long until the girlfriend shows up?"

"She said a few hours. Hey, doc's out, call ya back." Morgan stood. "How's he doing?"

"Cracked ribs, major blood loss, minor dehydration. We got the nails out successfully, but nerve damage is a possibility. One of his feet was gangrenous and we're going to have to amputate."

"Is he strong enough for that?" Rossi asked.

"Well, he got through the removal without dying on us, so we're hopeful. He's on IV fluids and we just hooked him up for a blood transfusion. We'll take him back as soon as there's enough blood in him for it to be safe."

"How long will that take?"

"About half an hour. We're keeping him under until then."

"You don't need his consent for an amputation?" Rossi asked skeptically.

"If he wasn't so badly hurt, we would, but between the torture and blood loss, he isn't in a fit state to make decisions for himself. If we don't amputate, he's going to die. From the state of his ribs, he's been revived once already today. We might not be able to get him back."  
***  
"Oh, look. I think that's his girlfriend. Jessica Moore?" Morgan called.

A tall, pretty blonde turned to face them. "Are you one of the FBI?"

"Yes ma'am. I'm Agent Morgan, we spoke on the phone."

"Right, right, yeah, how's Sam?"

"Recovering," Rossi said. "They had to amputate a foot."

"Oh God," Jessica breathed, looking sick.

"I'm Agent Rossi. Sam's going to be fine."

"He is?" Jessica asked, almost begging.

"Yeah, he should be. Look, I hate to ask again, but Dean's number is out of service. Do you have any idea who else we can call for him? Family?"

"No. Sam didn't talk about them except when we got him drunk. Then he wouldn't shut up about Dean."

"Good or bad?" Rossi asked, just to make conversation while they were waiting for the doc to come back out.

"Good. He didn't have anything bad to say about him. Dean almost raised him, it sounds like." Her voice hardened. "His fucking father kicked him out when he got in, full scholarship, and now he acts like Sam never existed. Sam acts like it doesn't bother him. Maybe it doesn't. Other than the amputation, how's he doing?"

"Dehydration, blood loss, cracked ribs. We won't know about any permanent damage until he wakes up."

"Amputation's pretty permanent."

"Yeah," Morgan said, "I guess it is."

They all three sat down to wait.

Hours later, the doctor came back out and they rose. "What's the news?" Jess asked anxiously.

"And you are?"

"His girlfriend," she said sharply. 

The doctor looked at Morgan and Rossi, who nodded, before she said, "Sam is going to recover. Physically, at least. We won't know if he'll recover mentally until he's awake and aware."

"He was coherent when we found him," Morgan told her.

She nodded. "That's good news, then. Brain damage may be minor, if it exists, but we won't know until the sedatives wear off and he wakes up."

"Can I see him?" Jess asked anxiously.

"That's not a good idea," Morgan said before the doctor could answer. "He probably won't know where he is, and when I said you were worried about him in the warehouse, he told me to keep you away so you wouldn't be hurt. Let him figure out he's in the hospital first."

"Very true," the doctor said. "And we need to see how he'll wake up - given the condition he came in and the frankly impression collection of old scars, he might come up swinging. It's best if you're not there when it happens."

"Fine," Jessica grumbled.  
***  
Sam woke up sometime in the night. When the specialists came in the next day, he was tested and found groggy and hazy, but sound of mind. Morgan was admitted to his room, Reid in tow, late in the afternoon. Rossi had stayed at the hotel with the others; the team's unspoken hope was that Reid could connect with Sam as a fellow survivor of religion-fueled torture.

"Sam?" Reid's voice was quiet in the hospital room. "My name's Doctor Spencer Reid. I'm an analyst with the FBI. This is my colleague, Agent Morgan. Can we ask you a few questions?"

Sam licked his lips, nodded. Morgan silently pushed the water glass closer to him, and Sam mumbled, "Thanks."

"No problem, kid." Morgan sat in one of the chairs, and Reid briefly envied his ability to make even molded plastic look comfortable. 

Sam swallowed. "What do you want to know?"

"Do you remember how they got you?" Reid asked quietly. "Did they come up from behind you? Or were they in front?"

"Um." Sam looked at the ceiling, trying to _think._ "I don't know."

"Do you know how many there were?"

He licked his lips again. "There would have been at least four-"

"Do you remember how many?"

Sam scrunched his eyes shut and concentrated, tears of frustration pricking at his eyes. "I don't think so. I'm sorry."

"It's okay," Reid said. "I'd like to try a memory exercise, if that's okay." He waited for Sam to nod before he moved on. "You need to close your eyes for me."

Sam swallowed, naked fear flashing in his eyes for a brief moment before the lids shuttered. 

"I want you to think back to that night," Reid said quietly. "It was dark. You were walking through the streets. Think about the breeze on your skin. The way your clothes shifted as you walked. The cross-streets." Sam nodded. "Now. What happened?"

"There was - a van," Sam said slowly. "White, panel, no windows. Logo on the side, green and black, didn't catch more than that. They wore dark grey, I remember thinking they'd been trained because amateurs would have worn black. The first one came up from behind, I didn't even hear him, and he stuck something in my neck. I think it was a syringe, of some kind? Maybe a sedative, but those don't work too well on me. I know he wasn't expecting me to turn and fight, because of the look on his face."

"What did he look like?" Morgan interrupted.

"Hispanic. Five-eight, maybe? Dark hair and eyes, wide nose. Behind him, six-foot or so, blond hair, and a five-nothing man with dark hair and green eyes. There were four others, they were wearing masks."

"Ski masks?" Morgan prompted when it looked like he was done. "Or plastic?"

"Halloween," Sam said. "One was a - a werewolf, I think. I don't watch horror movies too often, so I'm not sure, but I think a different one was supposed to be a vampire, and the third was definitely a clown." He sounded positive about that one. Reid made a mental note to ask why later. "When I didn't go down from whatever they gave me, they all attacked me at once, and I - I mean, I'm a good fighter - or I _was_ , I guess, God only knows if I can fight now. Anyway, I was outnumbered, and they'd definitely been trained, it wasn't street fighting. Formal, but not dojo. One of them was definitely military, and one was a boxer, but I don't know about the other three, they were all mixed up. They choked me out, and I woke up in the van." He took a shuddering breath.

"What happened then?" Reid asked.

"I was - I was tied and gagged. We stopped, I don't know how long it was, but they dragged me out by my arms. They were laughing and talking. It was _fun_ for them. How could it be fun for them?

"And then, when we got inside, I saw there were more of them. Fourteen, I think, but I'm not entirely sure. It took a lot of them to control me, I wanted gone and my dad made sure I could slip most any knot, but they'd taken my knives and so I didn't even have any weapons, and bare-knuckle numbers win. They beat me until I could barely move, and then they strung me up." He opened his eyes and glared at the bandages on his wrists. "And they kept me strung up until my heart stopped, and I remember thinking, _This is it, it's over, they're done_. But then I woke up again." He choked, a tear running down his face, and he swiped clumsily at it with a heavily-bandaged hand. "And the bastards waited until I was conscious to give me water, and then they put me back up there, nailed me in, they waited until I was conscious to do that. And I saw the others, I wasn't the only one, did you find the others? They're dead, but did you find them?"

"Yes, Sam," Reid said, leaning forward. "We found them. It's how we found you."

"Thank God," he breathed, shaking.

"So they crucified you twice," Morgan said quietly.

"Three times," he corrected. "Yesterday, I guess, they revived me again. They wanted me conscious," he repeated, tears coming faster. "And they were laughing, and cheering, and it was _fun_ for them. When I was up there, they'd come by and taunt me, tell me if I could get the nails out I was welcome to leave, but those were big nails and I couldn't figure it out, I couldn't figure out how to get my ankles free without taking my feet off and I didn't know how to get my wrists free without cutting all the veins and bleeding out in a matter of minutes-" he choked, breathing in choppy pants as tears rushed down his cheeks, and Reid leaned over him.

"You need to breathe, Sam," he said quietly. "You're hyperventilating. Breathe with me, okay? Counts of five, can you do that?" Sam nodded frantically, trying to get his too-fast heart under control. 

Morgan breathed with them. Sam choked on his own tongue the first few times he tried to slow down, but he did eventually manage. "I'm sorry," he whispered when he could talk again.

"Don't be sorry," Reid said kindly. "You've been through a lot."

Sam looked away uncomfortably. "It's not _that_ much."

"Alright, kid," Morgan said, leaning forward. "What you're doing now? It's called minimizing and repressing. You're taking something huge and trying to turn it into something that doesn't matter. You're trying to turn it into just another summer. And that's dangerous, Sam. You're going to have an emotional response to this. You have to let yourself have it."

"Or what?" Sam asked, voice raw and falling just short of defiant, sounding young and scared instead. "What's going to happen if I don’t?"

"You'll explode," Reid answered for him. "You'll turn it inward, you'll turn it into your own failing somehow, and you'll blame yourself for everything."

"It kind of was my fault," Sam muttered. "I should've fought better."

"It was five on one, kid, nobody could take that on."

"If you say so," Sam replied, unconvinced.

Morgan said, "If it were Jess, what would you say? Would you think it was her fault?"

"Of course not," Sam snapped.

"What about your brother," Reid said. "Would you blame him for not fighting better?"

"If Dean was here, we would've found each other in hours," Sam said.


	3. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On the plane, Reid and Morgan talk.

Morgan sat across from him. "You all right?"

Reid frowned. "Yeah, why?"

"You're just quiet, is all. For you. Thinking about Sam?"

Reid shrugged. "I saw his transcripts, you know. He's absolutely brilliant. He went to forty-seven different high schools, did you know that? And ninety percent of his financial aid was merit-based."

"He's still smart," Morgan reminded him.

"I know, but-" Reid huffed out a breath, frustrated in his search for words. "I'm worried. He was tortured for months. I lasted all of two days and I fell into addiction. What's going to happen to him now? And he lost a foot."

"You usually don't get so attached."

"I can't help it. I like him, okay? We can have a conversation and I don't have to hold back everything I'm thinking."

"You don't have to do that with us, man," Morgan said.

"Yeah," Reid said, "I really do. You guys are better about it than a lot of people, but his mind works like mine does. I'll quote a statistic and he'll quote one right back. I drew a conclusion without explaining the steps and he follows, and I did the same to him. When I'm talking with you guys, I have to support what I'm saying because otherwise you won't see what I see, but Sam took what I said and found the evidence without me saying anything."

"So you finally found someone who could keep up with you and he's on the other side of the country."

"Pretty much. I wonder what he'll do next."

"Law school," Morgan answered promptly. "Physical therapy, prosthetic, law school, lawyer. It's what he wants. And if he's as much like you as you _claim_ \- he'll make it happen, torture or no torture." He pulled out his headphones. "Now go to sleep, kid. We'll hit Quantico around four in the morning."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And thus ends another fic. Hope you enjoyed!


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